Leveraging Alignment in Service to Engagement: Part I

It’s easy to confuse engagement with entertainment. Both are positive experiences that produce feelings of satisfaction, and both are easily distinguished from boredom. It’s also easy to confuse alignment with standardization. Both concern themselves with clear definitions of quality and transparent expectations. Both are also easily distinguished from free rein.

But engagement is not entertainment, and alignment is not standardization.

More importantly, one is not the enemy of the other. In fact, the most talented teachers I know leverage alignment in service to engagement.

Every teacher has this power.

It’s a choice.

When teachers prioritize alignment over engagement, students struggle to invest in their learning or produce meaningful work for real audiences. When they prioritize engagement over alignment, students might hyper-focus on the content, skills, and activities that compel them most, while failing to learn other things that are less desirable but no less important. After all, we don’t know what we don’t know, and we aren’t aware of what might engage us until someone invites us to learn more about it, either.

So, how do we proceed?

I’m still searching for my own answers to this question, but my experiences have taught me this: it’s important to leverage alignment in service to engagement. What’s more, we must make engagement a priority as we pursue alignment. When we sacrifice one for the other, learning is compromised, and kids suffer for it.

I’ve also learned that regardless of whether we adopt, adapt, or design curricula, we need to question the way we pursue alignment and engagement. We need to study the way these forces influence our thinking and our work. We need to study their relationship with one another, too.

This is complex work, and transforming it into a meaningful conversation for Brilliant or Insane readers is just as challenging. This first post will help us define engagement and alignment. My next post will challenge you to use the matrix above to leverage each in service to the other.

Ready to dive in? Consider these ideas, and share your thinking about them in the comments section.

Distinguishing Standardization from Alignment

Standardization implies a lack of trust. It demands obedience, and it flourishes when people lack faith in the capacity of others. Alignment flourishes in a trusting environment. It requires cooperation, and it flourishes when people are eager to share their passions and their growing expertise. Alignment helps us build coherent pathways for learners across systems.

Standardization demands blind obedience to prefabricated programs that are dropped into systems that may not need them. Alignment enables systems in need to identify suitable solutions. When those solutions come in the form of prefabricated programs, alignment inspires savvy adaptation that attends to the needs, the vision, and the interests of students and teachers.

A former English teacher, Angela Stockman is the founder of the WNY Young Writer's Studio, a community of writers and teachers of writing in Buffalo, New York. She is also an education consultant with expertise in curriculum design, instructional coaching, and assessment. Read more from Angela at Angelastockman.com.

About The Author

angelastockman

A former English teacher, Angela Stockman is the founder of the WNY Young Writer's Studio, a community of writers and teachers of writing in Buffalo, New York. She is also an education consultant with expertise in curriculum design, instructional coaching, and assessment. Read more from Angela at Angelastockman.com.

I can really identify with your definitions. And I like very much your leading up to what the late Stephen Covey did, what I call the ‘Quadrant 2’ solution (high alignment and high engagement).

It occurs to me that all too many learners seek a ‘Quadrant 3’ education: Want the teacher to ‘tell them what they need to do to be successful and do it (high standardization); and do it via how-to rules, procedures, videos, acronyms, … (high entertainment). A few might venture into Quadrants 1 or 4; some might even understand and seek Quadrant 2 but my experience suggests Quadrant 3 if the choice for high school and college learners most often.John Bennett recently posted…A Disturbing Post From ASEE On K-12 Engineering Education